Table Tennis-Teaching Robots

The FORPHEUS Table Tennis Robot Can Analyze and Improve Your Game

Omron, a company that specializes in automated and electro-mechanical technologies for industrial settings, has developed something truly unique in the form of the FORPHEUS, a third-generation table tennis robot that is designed to be your opponent as well as your teacher.

This high-tech robot is fitted with an array of sensors that allow it to monitor and analyze its opponents' play. Unlike human opponents whose only aim is to hit the ball where you can't reach it, the merciful FORPHEUS actually changes its skill level to match yours. This means that it tries to keep the rally going for as long as possible to help you improve, but also upgrades its difficulty level when it detects improvements in your own performance.

The aim of developing this table tennis robot has less to do with increasing the global standard of table tennis and more to do with exploring the use of automated robots' analytical technologies to improve human performance in industrial settings.